


The Lullaby

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: The Outer Rim [10]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Dreams, Family Feels, Flashbacks, Gen, No Romance, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28606428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Din is exhausted from long weeks of travel with the Child; it's time to sleep, but the Child resists.  Set between chapters 8 and 9.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Series: The Outer Rim [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055645
Comments: 17
Kudos: 170





	The Lullaby

Maybe it would be different this time.

He floated, gauzily, through the old house. Sunlight slanted through transparisteel windows, lining the little things, the ordinary things, with a rich and reddish gold. The breakfast table was a glory. His father’s wooden flutes glimmered. His toys, little silver droids he pulled on strings or pushed on wheels, glowed beautifully as he played. He made silly little noises to himself, whole stories and conversations about the battles they would fight at each other’s side.

But the sounds struck, faint at first, then throbbing in the near distance. _Boom, boom._ The whine of blaster fire. 

Din flinched. It was always like this. Always. He shivered, sinking into himself, wrapping his arms around his middle.

His mother’s arms flailed, frantic as she crossed the living space. His father’s face was pale. They scooped him up into their strong, safe arms, and he wept with confusion, with fear. The toy droids rattled across the floor.

They ran.

* * *

Din started, breathing hard, and sat up straight in the pilot’s seat. Hell, he hadn’t meant to fall asleep. They were still in too close of an orbit to the last place they’d fled, and he didn’t intend for them to be captured somewhere this backwater. He took a deep breath, trying to center himself, but the exhaustion clung heavy on him.

He’d been tired before, of course. There’d been times as a young man he’d run himself near to death, chasing bounties, getting in over his head, seeking out yet another fight. But there’d been a nihilistic purity to it back then, the promise of a glorious death should things go badly, a battle worthy of the Way. It had been a _clean_ ache, and an empty one.

Now, though, he found himself tired in ways he’d never even thought about. 

He battled differently with the child around, always sensitive to the danger the fight posed to the little one; it led to taking different risks, making new assessments, sometimes taking hits that never would have landed had it been him alone. His body groaned with the effort some days, burdened with bruises, pulled muscles, burns from the rare blaster bolts that nearly made it past the beskar. He didn’t mind, patching himself up with bacta and painkillers at the end of each night. It was the Way.

But the exhaustion lingered, not always due to physical causes. Some nights the kid wouldn’t fall asleep, tossing and turning and fussing so that Din never did really rest either Sometimes just the mental calculations of fleeing, hiding, running, searching, were more exhausting than a physical fight. 

He thought now that he understood the Creed in a different way than ever before. Battle faded into the background, the warrior’s death a long distant fate. He ached in a way that had nothing to do with physical wounds but that laid him bare all the same, a feeling deeper than mere blood and bone. He thought of foundlings, of care, of sacrifice. 

He thought of the kid.

_The kid_. Where had the little womp rat gotten to? Din craned his head to the side, scanning for the kid through the visor of his helmet, and let out a sigh of relief. The little one was still buckled into his seat, though he looked just as wiped out as Din felt. His ears drooped all the way down to his shoulders, and his large eyes were half-lidded, little hands coming up to rub sleepily at his face.

“Hey there,” said Din. “We’d better get some rest, huh, buddy?” 

The child’s face crinkled, his big eyes narrowing. Oh, so he was going to be fussy tonight. The kid let out an annoyed little grunt as his hands curled into tiny fists.

“None of that,” said Din, a mild sternness creeping into his voice. “You need to lay down.” At the kid’s glower, he hastily amended, “We _both_ need to get some rest. Come on, I’ll come to bed with you. Just let me bring the Crest into a better orbit.”

The kid made some nonsense noises that he suspected were an affirmation. Din smiled faintly beneath his helmet. Those little sounds were becoming so familiar, he almost thought he could tell what they meant.

He brought the ship out of orbit, scrolling through options in the navicomputer. His eyelids felt so heavy, though. He took a deep breath through his nose, slowly letting it out through his mouth. Training in his youth came back to him, ways to ask ever more of the body in order to fulfill the Creed. _Just a bit further._ He breathed deep, struggling to keep himself alert.

He stared hard at the small screen, at his gloved fingertips hovering over its surface. They blurred slightly. He selected a path that would take them into a secluded orbit, far from satellites or prying eyes, and relaxed as he directed the ship along the planned path. He blinked. His vision slid from slightly blurred to doubled. 

He was so tired.

His head slipped forward, helmet weighing it down, until his chin rested on his chest. He jerked himself back, shaking his head sharply and trying to clear it. Dank _farrik_ , he needed to sleep.

“Just a little longer, kid,” he muttered. His hands felt faint on the controls, but he straightened up again. _Breathe deeply. Bring fire into the very center of your being. Direct the energy outward into a killing strike._ Though in this case, the killing strike was just the successful maneuvering of the ship into a new, hidden orbit, and nearly as difficult as any battle technique. At last, though, the navicomputer flashed at him, advising him he’d been successful.

His hands loosened and he yawned, getting wearily to his feet. His hand was sure on the child’s restraints, freeing him from the seat belt. He scooped the kid into his arms, his weight sure and familiar. 

“Come on, little guy,” he murmured. The kid fussed in his arms, burrowing his head into the woven cloth of Din’s cloak, a favorite place for him to nap. Din leaned his head to the side, helmet resting against the kid’s cheek, just for a moment.

He took the ladder carefully, keeping the kid pressed tight to his chest, and headed straight to his narrow cot. He sat down on it heavily, making sure to cradle the kid’s head as he did so.

“What do you think, pal?” he asked. “You want your bed tonight? Or do you want to stay here?”

It was about fifty-fifty, which option the kid chose. Sometimes he was happy to go curl up in the new pram Din had found for him, after the one that Kuiil had fixed up was burned on Nevarro. Din had gotten him several different blankets over the past several weeks, and sometimes the kid got real cozy under them, happy as anything.

Other times, more unsettled nights like tonight, the child made it quite clear he wanted to stay with Din, holding onto him tightly with those small arms. Tonight he kept his face pressed against Din’s cloak, and Din sighed, laying down and resting a hand on the child’s back. He rubbed it through the thick robe, small circles lazily round and round, something he faintly remembered his mother doing.

“How are you, buddy?” he asked softly.

The kid’s hand reached up, claw-tipped fingers curling into the cowl of Din’s undershirt, at the spot where neck met shoulder. Scared, then. Din had come to realize that when the kid was this clingy, he really felt anxious about something. Through the tiredness, his chest ached. He wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to him before Din had found him.

“Hey, it’s all right, I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Do you want a story?”

The kid’s ears flicked, twitching upwards. A yes.

_Shit._ It was so hard to remember any kind of story with his mind mushy and tired like this. He’d gotten pretty okay at stories, to his own surprise; sometimes he would simply tell the kid all about their adventures that day, but sometimes he’d come up with stories he picked up from around. Silly stories he’d overheard Peli Motto or Omera tell the kid; stories of Mandalor the Great riding the Mythosaur; stories about their friends Kuiil and IG-11 who had helped them. But tonight, nothing came to mind.

His eyelids fell shut. For a moment, he saw them again -- his mother, so beautiful and frightened; his father, who’d always seemed so strong, but now looked so afraid --

He blinked, coming back to himself again. He hesitated. 

“I don’t really have a story tonight, kid.”

The little one murmured crankily, little hand tightening into a fist, ears falling back down near his collar. Din rubbed his back soothingly, a circle here, a pat of his palm there.

“Uh…’” He swallowed. “Maybe a song?”

The baby stilled, large ears swiveling slightly, the better to hear. Din glanced down at him, saw those big eyes wide in anticipation.

“I’m not much of a singer,” he cautioned. He cleared his throat, closing his eyes, and remembered what his mother used to sing.

The song, halting at first, grew slowly in his mouth and throat. It had been so long since he’d sang, so long since he’d engaged with music. The Tribe had had no music; the noise was too dangerous, too risky, and the little metal they had was all reserved for armor and weapons, not musical instruments. But this was something older than his life as a Mandalorian, something soft and far away and secret.

He didn’t remember all the words. They weren’t in Basic, and he wasn’t sure of all of their meaning, having lost his parents’ language long ago. The melody cracked a little, here and there, his throat rusty when it came to notes higher than his voice could carry. But he knew it was a comfort-song, a happy song, a sleeping-song; it was a song of moons and stars and inky night, and he sang brokenly to the child, his voice small amidst the hum of the Crest.

The last chorus of the little song faded into the ship’s background sounds, and Din felt a curious unloosening in his chest, a weight lifting.

“You know...” he mumbled. Sleep seemed _so close._ “My mother used to sing that to me, when I was a child. It’s about the stars and moons going to sleep. I used to sing along with her.” He smiled drowsily, trying to remember. “And my father would leave the curtain open in my room, so I could see the moons and stars as they passed overhead.”

He brushed his hand over the child’s ears, gentle strokes. “Don’t forget, kid. You’re not alone out here. ‘S you and me, here amongst the stars,” he said, echoing the song’s refrain. He let out a sigh, more breath than voice. “This is the Way.”

The baby curled against him, his small hand slackening, relaxing. Quietly, he began to snore, and beneath him, Din fell into a deep sleep of his own.

He dreamed not of blaster fire, or fear, or smoke in the streets.

He dreamed of stars of white against a blue-flung sky, of golden moons rising brilliant in the night; and he dreamed of a child’s hand, held safely in his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the anon on tumblr who thought about Din running around to keep him and Grogu from being found and said "BRUH Din must be exhausted!"


End file.
